Jason was half pouting as he headed back upstairs with a sandwich in his hands. He’d waited and waited for Pam to bring supper up to him, but she never showed up with it. When he went downstairs to question her about it, she was huddled up on the couch with his mother and the two of them were giggling like young school girls together. When he asked what was up, his mother simply shooed him off with a wave, telling him, “It’s girl time.”
Girl time? With Pam and his mother?! What the hell was up with that!
Then, on top of all that, supper had already been served and cleared by the time he’d given up waiting and had went downstairs to check on things. All he had was a couple of cold ham and cheese sandwiches, which he had to fix for himself to eat!
Gosh darned women! At least he didn’t have to deal with them in game!
Swallowing the last dry bits of his sandwich, Jason trudged into his room, picked up his VRIG helmet and flopped down moodily on the bed. Wiggling the helm down over his head, he leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes. “Log in, Winter’s Tale,” he commanded softly.
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“You grungy old asshole! Pay attention to me when I’m talking to you!” A woman’s voice was loud and yelling into his ear the moment Jason appeared in the game. “Don’t just stare off into space like a complete and utter idiot! Have you, or have you not, finished with Rottooth’s blade!”
“Umm… What?” Blinking stupidly, Drun tried to sort out what was going on and why he was being shouted at. He’d logged out back in the house after supper, but now that he’d reentered the game, he was back in the smithy with Cedine screaming in his ear and some old, bearded dwarf watching the two of them while shuffling his feet as if he was almost embarrassed.
“Look, errr, if’n it’s not finished yet, I can always come back later,” Rottooth offered helpfully, eyeing first the door and then Cedine’s angry face. He looked like he was getting ready to bolt and run at any moment.
“What? Don’t you what me!” Reaching out, Cedine grabbed Drun by the beard and suddenly yanked his face up to hers, until she was staring nose to nose at him. “Have you, or have you not, finished with that old bastard’s blade yet?”
Drun blinked several times, and the words barely seemed to escape his stocky dwarven frame. “Umm…. Not?”
“Now, was that so damn hard?” Wrinkling her nose slightly, Cedine leaned forward, gently kissed him on the nose, and then released him. Turning back to the dwarf, she stomped her foot and pointed to the door. “You heard the man! Get the hell out! He’s not finished yet; come back tomorrow. Or even better, don’t ever come back!”
As she moodily shook her fist at him, Rottooth held up both his hands, slowly turned, and then marched out the door without saying a single word. Turning back around to face Drun, Cedine firmly planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. Arching an eyebrow towards the sky, she moodily asked, “What the hell was that all about?”
“Umm… What?” Shrugging his shoulders in an automatic reflex, Drun blushed and looked completely lost.
“Are ye sick?” Frowning, Cedine leaned forward and placed her right hand up on his forehead. “You don’t seem to be having a temperature. Just why the hell did you stop talking and just stare off all stupid like a half-wit for, a moment ago? You almost scared me out of my wits! I thought ye might be having a brain stroke or something!”
“I… I’m sorry!” Tugging away, Drun waddled over to a nearby stool and flopped down heavily on it. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, or in the real world either!” His gruff dwarven face wrinkled up and he almost looked as if he was going to cry.
Shocked at his strange reaction, Cedine walked over, flipped the sign at the front of the shop to closed and locked the door. Easing back to Drun, she walked up behind him and gently wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling his head back to rest against her breasts as she gently stroked his hair. “Drun, hun, this is the real world. If’n it isn’t, just what is it? What’s happened to my poor, wee babe?” Softly rocking as she held him, Cedine hummed lightly, trying to help calm Drun down.
“This isn’t real,” Drun muttered quietly, shaking his head from side to side in denial. “You’re not real. Even though this amazingly feels real, it’s all just a game. I’m not Drun Kindwarf. I’m Jason.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Cedine’s fingers stopped slowly, and she half trembled as she leaned behind him. “Are… Are ye possessed? What type of fiend are ye? What do you want with my husband?” Her voice was quiet; barely above a whisper; and Cedine trembled harder and harder as she forced the questions out one after the other. Barely loud enough to be heard at all, she asked, “Gods forbid, do I need a priest?”
Reaching up and taking her hands gently in his, Drun slowly shook his head. “There’s no need for a priest. They won’t be able to help.” Taking a deep sigh, he slowly rotated in the stool so he could stare up directly at Cedine. “I don’t know how much of this you’re going to be able to process and understand, but I’m not really your husband. If you want to consider it as if I’m a ghost who possessed him, that’s fine as well. The actual truth is probably something you couldn’t comprehend or wouldn’t believe.”
“I’m actually Jason,” Drun told her, as he gently let go of Cedine’s hands and stared into her eyes. “I hope you’ll believe me, but I don’t want to harm you or your husband at all.”
Staring at him suspiciously for a few moments, Cedine was quiet as she tried to appraise the situation. Finally, frowning heavily, she asked, “Then what do ya want?”
“I… I don’t know,” Drun answered, slumping his shoulders and looking defeated. “My friends came to this game… Err, this world of yours,” he corrected, seeing the puzzled look growing on Cedine’s face.
“My friends came to this world, but we got separated by…” Frowning, Drun tried to come up with a way to explain things to one of the NPCs in the game. Just how advanced was their A.I. anyway? Uncertain, he shrugged to himself and tried to keep it as simple and game-generic as possible.
“My friends came to this world, but we all got separated by some powerful force. It scattered our consciousness across the world and separated us. I’m not a mighty warrior, nor a powerful wizard. I just wanted to be able to come here and become someone who could help offer them support. I wanted to be able to help make them powerful armors and weapons to try and keep them safe in this new world,” Drun explained in a rush.
“I suppose my soul was drawn into your husband because of his talents as a smith. I’m sorry,” he apologized, feeling a little foolish for taking an NPC so seriously.
Cedine slowly nodded several times and then slowly walked over and sat down on a stool not far away. “That’s about the most damnably unbelievable thing I believe I’ve ever heard,” she snorted after a moment. “Souls from another world coming here and taking over our people. No damn body would ever believe such a tale!”
Banging a fist on the sale’s counter, she got up and stomped back and forth, pacing hard across the floor several times. “But one thing is fer certain; I’ve been married to ya crazy ass long enough to know you’re not my Drun Kindwarf!”
Stomping over, Cedine grabbed Drun by the beard and tugged his head until he was staring her directly in the eyes. “Jason? Isn’t that what ye said your name was? Get the hell outta my Drun!”
“Please… Please don’t make me do that,” Drun looked up at her, tears starting to run down his weathered dwarven face, soaking into his beard.
Sputtering in shock, Cedine took a step back, letting go of his beard. In all the long years she’d been married, she’d never once seen her husband cry, except for the birth of his daughters. The tears streaming so shamelessly down his face now tugged at her heart. Quietly, instinctively lowering her voice so it wasn’t as hard or demanding, she asked, “And why the hell not? Why can’t ya just go back home?”
“I can,” Drun admitted pitifully. “It’s just my friends are still here and I don’t want to abandon them. The magic that allows my soul to come here has its limitations. It can only connect to a single person or creature and then the bond is permanent.” Drun tried hard to explain in words which an NPC might understand, considering the game setting and all. “Drun is the only one who my soul can resonate with here. If I let him go free, I’ll be abandoning my friends.”
Cedine’s first instinct was to tell him to simply get the hell out of her husband, his friends be damned, but duty, honor, and the bonds of true friendship are ingrained deeply into the dwarven heart. Sighing deeply, she flopped back down onto the stool opposite him and slowly shook her head from side to side. “Then just what the hell are ye going to do? Just what the hell are Drun and I supposed to do?””
“I… I don’t know,” Drun admitted sadly after a few moments. “We were told this was ‘an experience unlike any other’. I just had no idea that things would be so advanced here. That you would be so much like ourselves.”
Jason knew Winter’s Tale was just a game. His mind accepted that fact easily enough, but watching Cedine’s expressions of concern, worry, and doubt, his heart felt guilty. He really was left with a feeling that he’d possessed someone else and stolen their life, and he didn’t have a clue what the hell to do about it.
“You know,” Drun admitted softly, “this isn’t the first time I possessed this body. I’ve been here before.”
“Oh, ye have?” Raising an eyebrow curiously, Cedine asked, “When was ye here last? How long do ya visits take?”
“I don’t know how long it’s been in this world, since my last visit,” Drun admitted. “It was the other day for me, when I first came here and started trying to figure out how to turn raw steel into something useful. You saw all the failures and picked them up for me.” He blushed slightly, remembering Cedine stripping topless to cool herself from the blazing heat of the smithy. “I was here all for supper and then…”
“OI! Ya perverted spirit bastard!” Leaping up, Cedine suddenly slapped him hard across the face. “I ‘member that night, and I know what happened after that! Get ye ass out of my Drun right now; I’m gonna neuter ya, ya bastard!”